Triumph Over Tragedy: an anthology for the victims of Hurricane Sandy

by R. T. Kaelin

  * *** *

  Yeah, I know. Mike was depressed, figuring out all the downsides of being what he was. And there were a bunch of other things he could have done, starting with picking me up and carrying me out of the alley instead of carrying El Sol into it. He didn’t have to die.

  But you know something? It was a mess in that alley, and it was scary, and I probably would have died. Mike died saving my life, and that’s what matters. The second time he died, he died a hero.

  * *** *

  It was nearly two months later that I fired up Capes Online and saw Sergeant Argent again. He wasn’t fighting anyone this time, just standing there waiting for me. He waved, and I hesitated, then waved back just as a chat message popped up.

  “yo, jim, i leveled up again,” it said. “what do you know bout ghosts?”

  *

  Sperare Victor

  by Tim Marquitz

  The stars loomed like angry eyes, accusation in every flicker. They were a brilliant jury set to weigh my guilt, and I felt naked beneath their gaze. Still, I was glad to see them. It had been far too long since I last set foot upon the earth.

  A sigh slipped loose at the thought. No matter what happened, it would be the last time.

  “Beautiful, are they not?”

  The only voice I’d known since my death, I recognized Arafal without hesitation. I held my tongue as I spun about, but it didn’t matter. The angel tasked with my judgment knew my mind as well as anyone could. There’d be no hiding my apprehension behind pacifying words.

  Arafal hovered above the ground, a willowy mist of light and roiling vagueness. He’d no identifiable features save for the pinpricks of his emerald eyes, which stared at me with unblinking fervor. Bound once more to flesh, there was nothing I could do to stop the shivers that set my limbs to trembling. I clasped my fingers together and drew a labored breath. I’d forgotten what it was like to be human.

  “The hour is at hand.”

  I swallowed hard against the emotions welling in my throat. Arafal had plucked me from the languid shores of Purgatory, telling me only that I was to be given one last chance at redemption before my sentence was pronounced, and nothing more. Tears warmed my cheeks as memories assailed me. It’d taken just one bullet to ruin all the good I’d done in my life; just one bullet to make me a murderer. But even now, on the eve of condemnation, I found it hard to be penitent.

  Jonathan Williams deserved to die.

  His name was a serpent in my ear. He took everything from me: Alice, Devin, and Jake. My wife…my boys. “He deserved what he got, and more.” The words tumbled free in a sob, but as much as I believed them, I couldn’t bring myself to look the angel in the eyes.

  Arafal’s light dimmed, the shadows deepening where my gaze lingered on the grass. “It was not your place to decide such, Michael,” I heard the disappointment in his voice, “but our Father knows the failings of His creations and understands your grief. This is why He offers you this one, final opportunity to redeem yourself in some small way.”

  The lure of salvation dangled before me, blurred by the sorrow that clung to my eyes. Somewhere on the other side, far from the mind-numbing emptiness of the way station in between, was my family. I missed them so much. “What would you have of me?” There was no forgiveness in me for the man who butchered my wife and children, my heart hollowed by their loss, but I would risk Hell to see them once more.

  “You need only to do what is right.”

  Cloying warmth washed over me, the grass disappearing beneath my feet to be replaced by old tiles. Cracked, lines of dirt spider-webbed the floor, the grout blackened with mold and grime. The fresh air I’d taken for granted was now thick with the stale and musty scent of lifetimes of discontentment. I raised my chin to see where I’d been taken. A tiny apartment took shape.

  The walls were a dingy shade of yellow, as though they’d never been white, brown streaks marring the surface between the paintings that hung wearily upon bent and jutting nails. The simple sceneries pressed behind dirty glass barely stood out against the blandness of the walls. They were only deeper shades of gloom amidst the whole. Dust cluttered in the frames and had fallen to collect on the frayed carpet below. Empty of furniture, the room seemed to echo with my every breath. My gaze was drawn to the flowered sheet that had been pinned across the only window. I started across the room.

  “God will see you through the first of the trials, Michael, but no more.” His presence flickered. “Your fate is in your hands.”

  There was no need to turn. Arafal was gone. The bleakness of the room fell over me in his absence. I was on my own with no sense of what was to come. Hands trembling, the air thick in my lungs, I continued to the window, pulling the makeshift curtain aside before I could convince myself not to.

  Dim shafts of daylight met my eyes, worming their way through the sprawling tenements that rose like gravestones from the street. The world outside stretched into the horizon, a perfect match for the room in which I stood. It was drained of color, gray blending into deeper shades to be swallowed by the blackness of shadows.

  Movement below the window caught my eye, two men sauntering past one another in conspicuous casualness. Their clumsy interaction was obvious even to me, grasping hands doing nothing to hide the exchange of folded bills for a tiny baggie of white rock. Each went their separate way, satisfied smiles at a deal well done. No sirens wailed in the distance and no shouts followed them as they faded into the gray of the afternoon.

  Were these the souls God wanted saved?

  I shook the thought from my head. He couldn’t have brought me here for them, but why had He? My stomach in knots with uncertainty, I followed the line of the buildings up into the sky, missing the array of stars that had greeted my return. Only pale blue stared back. I reached to unlock the window when a low rumble shook the frame. The blue was washed away in a streak of silver, darkness settling over only to be yanked away a moment later. I saw the orange-red flicker of engines before I heard them, the building rattling in their wake.

  The plane screamed over the rooftops, far too low for everything to be all right. Was this why I was here? I watched the trail of the passenger liner as it streaked overhead. Realization struck me as I followed its course, and I knew where I was. Perspective fell over me in a cold sheen. I was home in Rockford, just south of the airport. That wasn’t where the plane was headed, the tarmac miles to my back. There was nothing out beyond the city but open fields and…

  My breath went still in my lungs. The aircraft dipped as I stared on, cutting a line in the sky, billowing clouds puffing to life at its tail. It was accelerating.

  Then it was gone.

  A flash of light dotted the horizon, and I heard the thunder of its impact. I knew then why I was there. Terror sunk sharpened talons into my heart as my worst fears bore fruit. A second and third explosion sounded, followed closely by a fourth. I was Rockford’s Lot but given no warning to leave the coming Sodom.

  The plane hadn’t crashed. It had been directed with malevolence, straight into the Byron nuclear reactors just a few short miles from town.

  Brilliance erupted, so intense I was forced to look away. Tracers scarred my eyelids as I dove to the floor, a whistling gale announcing destruction’s presence. The room fell away, and I screamed until the darkness took me.

  * *** *

  Consciousness found me amidst the wreckage.

  I choked down a ragged breath, which tasted of ash, as sense returned. A hacking cough led the charge as I scrambled to my knees to take account. My body ached, but I possessed all my limbs. Fingers wiggled on command beneath the cloying coating of dirt and blood, and I could feel my toes. Red lines littered the canvass of my skin, but I could find no wound greater than a scratch. Arafal’s words came back to me then, a splinter in my mind. If this was but the first trial, I wanted nothing to do with what came next.

  A groan slipped out as I rose unsteadily to my feet, debris crunching beneath my heels. My pulse roa
red inside my skull, and I knew what I wanted didn’t matter any longer. I’d made my choice when I stalked my family’s killer and shot him while he ascended the steps to the courthouse. Now there was nothing left but God’s will, whatever it may be.

  I turned and looked to the window to find it was gone, the yellowed walls along with it. In fact, the floor had collapsed at some point when I was out, dropping me into the apartment below. I could only hope it had been empty as I stared out through the cave-like opening, a reverse archway of what had once been the building’s exterior. The street was less than twenty feet away, nothing but rubble between. A wash of umber devoured the blue of the sky. The scent of char and burnt rubber stung my nose. I stumbled out onto the asphalt to the rhythm of the blood in my ears.

  Off to my right, halfway buried under a pile of red bricks, was the young drug dealer I’d seen from the window. His eyes were wide and empty, staring without sight. Dollar bills swirled around him in the breeze, a funeral procession of his closest friends. He was beyond my meager help so I left him behind. Whatever his journey, he was already on his way.

  Slowly, the hum abated as I walked, the sounds of the world growing in volume. What I heard sickened me. The living wailed for their loved ones clutched dead in their arms, the wounded moaning their last beneath the crumbling landscape. Dogs barked in the distance, shrill, fearful yips sounding so much like lost children in the growing darkness.

  Hour after hour, I helped where I could, pulling wounded from the devastation of their homes, but I’d little skill in bandaging wounds or assessing injuries. I was no nurse or doctor, not that it mattered. The ant-like creep of radiation set my skin to itching and burned my eyes. Whatever kindness I had to offer the suffering was likely a short term balm. Those who’d survived the blast would probably succumb to the ravages of fallout, their lives slipping away with their sloughing flesh before they’d a chance to get better. In the borrowed husk of my body, I was the lucky one. My judgment would be rendered long before then.

  Weary to my very core, I shambled along. Every corpse I stumbled across was another nail in the coffin of my spirit. Numbness settled over, emotion slowly anaesthetized to the repetitive horror that splayed out before me. Any longer and I would welcome the respite of Hell.

  “No. My baby!”

  I spun about at the screech that pierced my sour thoughts, my mind dimly aware of what was happening. A young woman was being dragged bodily across the street by two men. She fought them every step of the way, her arms outstretched, fingers clasping, toward the ruin of a two-story apartment complex. The front balcony swung like a pendulum, wrought iron creaking. A waterfall of bricks tumbled from the roof and the whole building trembled on its foundations. It was ready to fall.

  The woman screamed again, breaking free of her captors. She darted toward the building, making it halfway before the men dragged her back. “Sharon!” The name surged from her mouth in a ragged, piercing shriek.

  Before I even realized, I was running. Bulling past the men and ignoring their shouts, I sidestepped the swinging balcony and ducked inside the bottom apartment where I’d seen them emerge. The building rumbled a welcome. Showers of dust rained down atop me, cracks growing along the ceiling. A muffled cry slithered through the chaos. I followed the sound and found myself in a bedroom, the far corner of the apartment having collapsed. A gray cloud whirled before my eyes, obscuring my sight, but there was no mistaking the terrified whimpers of a child too young for words.

  I fanned the air and pushed on to find a crib. It had been knocked on its side by the falling debris. The opening against the back wall, it had formed a tiny cage, locking the child inside and protecting her at the same time. Dressed in a pink sleeper, the baby huddled in the corner, her face obscured by the toppled mattress. I kicked a splintered sheet of plywood out of the way so I could reach the crib and grabbed the struts at the bottom. The cold metal bit into my hands as I yanked them aside, leveraging them apart. Sharon mewled while I shoved past the mattress to grab her. She started at my touch, wide eyes ogling at me in silence.

  There was no time for soothing words. The floor shook as I slipped her from the crib and tucked her in my arms. Vibrations ran up my legs to a serenade of creaks. The dust danced chaotic, and I couldn’t breathe. I covered the baby and ran for the door.

  Two steps were all I managed.

  There was a grinding snap, like a thousand branches breaking all at once, and something crashed into my head and back. I twisted as darkness tunneled my vision, going fetal as I was slammed into a small, pressboard dresser before hitting the ground. Sharon cried as I hunched to keep the whole of my weight off her, and I felt something twang at my side as a dozen picture frames fell over us. My thoughts tumbled over one another as I lay panting, trying to catch my breath, but one stood out clear: the building was coming down.

  I shrugged off the slab of fallen ceiling and nearly lost consciousness at the motion, a lightning bolt of agony spearing my left side. The baby whimpered, and I bit back a scream as I fell back into the shattered dresser to keep from passing out.

  “It’s okay, Sharon,” I told her as I shifted her to my lap so I could see how bad I was hurt.

  A frigid chill washed over me as I lifted my left arm gingerly. There in the crook of my armpit was a stub of wood, which jutted a few short inches from between my ribs. I could feel the other end buried deep inside my chest. Bile welled in my throat, and the world swayed. I had no idea what the wound meant to me, but to my borrowed body, it was fatal. And if I died, so did Sharon.

  I gulped for air, tasting as much blood as oxygen, and pulled myself to my knees. Glass crunched beneath me, shards impaling my shins. I cradled Sharon to my unwounded side and grasped at the remnants of the dresser to pull me to my feet. The appearance of a face I knew stopped me cold. My heart sputtered as I looked to the wooden frame that lay in the detritus beside me. I felt my cheeks warm as adrenaline filled my veins with furious energy. I snatched the picture up.

  Jonathan Williams smiled at me from the photograph.

  Darkness gnawed at the edges of sense and I was suddenly lightheaded. The photo blurred in and out of focus as I stared at it, desperate to have imagined him, but the bastard remained. Why was he here? As I pondered that, an echoing thought in the empty well of my mind, I noticed the people with him in the photograph. A young man sat to his right, the killer’s hand on his shoulder. There was no doubting the lineage of the boy, their faces a perfect match for one another.

  The girl with them was a few years younger, her hair pulled into a tight ponytail that brought her face into focus. Sharon wriggled in my arms, the sounds of crumbling stone echoing around us as I stared. Memory flickered to the woman in the street, frantically trying to reach her baby. She was the young girl in the photo. The realization stole my breath away.

  In my arms was the grandchild of the man who’d murdered my family.

  I slumped back into the wreckage with a sigh. Sharon whimpered, and I could hear her mother screaming for her outside. The building continued to tremble, ready to crash down any moment, but I didn’t care. Arafal had set me on the path to damnation.

  A wet chuckle slipped loose at the thought. I stared at the squirming child and all I could see was the face of a killer, the man who took my family from me. Images of what he did played out across the screen of my memories. Blood and cruelty filled my head, my poor boys covered in the gore of their mother before they had their turn beneath the butcher’s knife. My stomach roiled, and I tasted the bitter acid of my past life rising into my throat. They had deserved so much better.

  I glared at Sharon, knowing the blood of her grandfather ran in her veins. Her family would live on while mine had come to a violent, brutal end. Jonathan Williams had taken everything from me, and in my hands was an opportunity for atonement fitting the crime. A single bullet had exacted justice, but there’d been no satisfaction. He hadn’t suffered as I had; his family hadn’t suffered.

  The ceiling
shuddered as I stared up at it, casting my spiteful gaze toward the heavens. “Is this why you brought me here?” My shout startled the baby. She cried as I lifted her up before me and stared into the dark swirl of her big eyes, tears spilling silver across her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Sharon. You deserved better, too.”

  There was only one thing left to do.

  * *** *

  Brilliant light enveloped me, fading by degrees until I could see beyond it. Arafal floated before me, the green of his eyes piercing my soul. He said nothing for a long moment. The heat of his gaze withered away as he drifted aside so I might see what I’d wrought.

  A body lay face down upon the street, a small cluster of people surrounding it. Blood pooled under its torso, a wet trail leading from the crumpled apartment building steps from where it had been dragged, staining the asphalt a deeper shade of black. There were no tears in the eyes of those who hovered about; no wails or sorrowed cries. There was only the somber weight of silence.

  The people turned from the body, leaving it where it lay. They clung to one another as they departed, and I spied the limp bundle in the mother’s arms. She walked toward us, though I know she couldn’t see me or the avenging angel at my side. Sorrow masked her features as she approached, its shadowy touch mirrored on the faces of the others. The group shambled right before us, the young woman’s gaze falling to the motionless child.

  Her sadness fell away.

  The child giggled as they passed through us, stirring up tracers of our ethereal essences. Sharon’s eyes found mine for just an instant, and a smile crept to her lips. It remained there until she faded from my sight.

  “Come, Michael,” Arafal said. “Your family awaits.”